IDF won’t hold back after mortars fired at Israeli communities from Gaza

It was the largest salvo fired towards Israeli territory since the end of Operation Protective Edge in 2014.

Three rounds, consisting of a total of nearly 30 mortar shells, were fired at Israel, with at least two exploding inside communities in the Eshkol Regional Council, including one which fell in the yard of a kindergarten shortly before students were set to arrive for their school day.

Politicians have called for a strong response and it is expected that the IDF will not hold back in striking targets in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for security consultations with intelligence officials at the Prime Minister’s Office and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is currently convening a special situational assessment with IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot along with the heads of the defense establishment at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Before the salvo, fewer than 10 projectiles were fired from the Hamas-run Strip into Israeli territory in 2018. During the previous year, 31 projectiles were fired from Gaza, mainly during the month of December after US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv. In 2016, some 15 were fired and another 21 were launched towards Israel in 2015.

Thousands of Palestinians have been demonstrating along the security barrier with Israel since March 30, and despite at least 119 Gazans killed by Israeli fire and thousands of others wounded, Hamas and other groups in the Strip have refrained from launching any rockets or mortars.

While Israel holds Hamas responsible for everything which occurs in the Strip, including rockets that have been fired since the end of Operation Protective Edge, it is unlikely that the terror group is behind the rocket salvo.

One good candidate for the barrage of mortars, which began at 6:59 a.m. and ended only some three hours later, is Islamic Jihad.

On Sunday, three of the terror group’s members were killed when IDF tanks struck an observation post in the southern Gaza Strip after an explosive device hidden in bolt cutters was placed on the security fence with Israel.

Official Palestinian news agency WAFA identified two of fatalities by the Israeli strike east of the city of Rafiah, 25 year-old Hussein Samir E’mour and 28 year-old Abdal-Halim Abdal-Kareem al-Naqa. The site was said to have been completely destroyed in the attack.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shihab suggested that the two killed were members of the organization. He said, in response to Israel’s shelling, that the group “will not abandon our right to respond to Israel’s dangerous escalation and we know what to do to remind Zionist terrorism that the blood of our people is not cheap.”

In November of last year, Islamic Jihad fired 12 mortars aimed at an IDF post and a cement factory on the north-eastern edge of the Gaza Strip where construction crews are working on Israel’s new underground barrier with the Strip.

The mortar barrage came a month after the IDF destroyed one of the group’s cross-border attack tunnels, killing 14 terrorists. Following the destruction of the tunnel, the IDF upped its alertness along the Gaza border and deployed Iron Dome batteries across the center of the country.

The salvo on Tuesday comes hours after several homes and cars were hit by heavy machine gunfire in the southern Israeli city of Sderot. The gunfire, which was likely aimed at Israeli aircraft over the Strip, caused minor damage but no injuries and activated the Color Red incoming rocket siren.